The narrator relays a story about a young rickshaw driver named Ramani, which took place in his home village during the late 1970s State of Emergency (a 21-month period in which democracy in India was suspended). Everyone in town thought Ramani was a fool because he was interested in a local thief’s widow, who had five children. The narrator tried to warn Ramani against getting involved with the widow and even confronted the widow about taking advantage of Ramani. The widow assured the narrator that Ramani’s advances were for nought because he wanted to have children and she didn’t want more children.

Not long later, however, the narrator was horrified to witness Ramani entering one of the government-issued forced sterilization vans in town. He realized the widow had convinced Ramani to volunteer himself “to a humiliation which was being forced upon the other men who were taken into the caravan” (26). Shortly thereafter, Ramani and the widow married. The narrator confronted Ramani about the matter, but he insisted he had never been happier. He didn’t mind getting sterilized either, because he could still have sex, was now married to the widow, and would soon receive a free transistor radio from the government for his services.

Months passed, and Ramani still did not receive his radio. He went around town pretending to hold an invisible radio to his ear and spouting off imagined newscasts. The narrator pitied Ramani but did not know what to do.

Finally, a van arrived in town to deliver the transistor radios. Ramani waited three days to collect his. When he entered the caravan, the narrator heard a ruckus inside. Ramani emerged with mussed up hair and a bleeding lip. Meanwhile, the widow and her children sat in the rickshaw looking on and doing nothing.

A few days later, Ramani informed the narrator he and his family were leaving for Bombay. The narrator was skeptical, but the family disappeared shortly thereafter.

A few months later, Ramani started sending the narrator letters, detailing his fantastic new life in the city. The narrator enjoyed the letters, but couldn’t help remembering Ramani traipsing around town with his imaginary radio. He wondered now if his epistolary accounts were true.

One winter in Srinagar, a young man named Atta visits a squalid area of the city in search of a professional burglar. He tries to hire a thief for his own particular use but ends up getting attacked in a dark alley and thrown into a lake. A flower vendor finds the injured, unconscious Atta and returns him to his family. The shocked family pays the vendor handsomely for his troubles.

Not long later, Atta’s sister Huma goes to the same area of the city, also in search of a thief. However, she tells the men she encounters that if they do her any harm, her police commissioner uncle will punish them. The men lead Huma to the recesses of the city where she meets a man who demands she explain her reasons for wanting to hire a thief before putting her in contact with a possible candidate. Huma insists the case is confidential and she will only provide the details to the thief himself.

Huma meets with a notorious thief named Sín. When Sín asks about the job she wants him to perform, Huma launches into her story.

A week prior, Huma’s father, Hashim, found a vial containing the Prophet Muhammad’s hair in the lake outside their home. A clever moneylender and collector of rarities, Hashim decided to keep the relic. He understood it had recently been stolen from the Hazratbal mosque where it was enshrined. However, he believed it’d be better for him to keep it than for religious fanatics to revere an item the Prophet himself wouldn’t have approved of. He confides this to his son and swears him to secrecy.

Hashim spent the next hours sitting in his study, clutching the vial. Finally on the verge of exploding, Hashim burst out of his study and confronted his family, accusing them of all manner of crimes and indiscretions. He accused Atta of being a dolt, Huma of being immodest for not covering her face in the streets, and revealed that he was unhappy in his marriage and had been cheating on his wife for years.

Over the following days, Hashim became extremely religious, which he had never been before. He made his family dress, eat, pray, and behave in a rigid manner while meanwhile berating them.

Unable to tolerate Hashim’s tormenting, Atta entered his study and took the vial, unbeknownst to his father. He then confided in Huma, explaining what Hashim had found and identifying the vial as the possible source of Hashim’s behavior. The siblings agreed that Atta should deposit the vial back in the lake and end their woes. Not long later, however, Hashim rediscovered the vial in the water and brought it back to the house. A distressed Atta sought Huma’s help once more.

She now asks Sín if he can break into her family’s home and steal the vial from Hashim; he keeps it under his pillow when he sleeps. She explains the layout of their house and how best to enact the heist. After he procures the vial, he should go to her room, where she’d give him all of her family’s jewelry, worth a large sum.

That night, Sín enters the house and successfully takes the vial out from under Hashim’s pillow. However, things go awry when Atta wakes up, spots Sín, and starts screaming that there’s a burglar in the house. He then falls back onto the bed and dies. Finding her son dead in his bed, Atta’s mother starts wailing and wakes up Hashim. Hashim grabs his sword from his room and races into the hallway, where Sín narrowly escapes his notice by ducking into a corner. Another shadow emerges and Hashim wildly thrusts his sword forward, accidentally killing Huma. Horrified by what he has done, Hashim then kills himself with the sword. Thereafter, the mother’s mental health deteriorates and she is institutionalized.

Afraid of the disaster he has created, Sín flees the house and returns home. He tells his wife, who is blind, about his failed mission and informs her he will have to go into hiding.

When the Hashim household’s servants discover what happened, they call Hashim’s brother, the police commissioner. He deploys numerous officers into the alleys, where they find and kill Sín. Inside his pocket, they discover the vial. The police then return the relic to the mosque.

The next morning, Sín’s wife awakens to find her eyesight restored. She attributes the miracle to having the Prophet’s hair at her home for one evening.